Catholics divided after carnival politics enrages Brazilian right

‘Living the Gospel means serving the most vulnerable. Those offended by the parade are concerned by minor issues while we have real problems,’ said Archbishop Zanoni Demettino Castro.

The parade of the samba school Acadêmicos de Niterói on 15 February was the most controversial of this year’s Carnival competition in Brazil.

Although Acadêmicos was not a major contender – this year was the first time it paraded among the top samba schools – most of the public debate surrounding the Carnival focused on it, including within religious circles.

The theme of its parade was the life of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Born into a poor rural family in Brazil’s northeast, he migrated to São Paulo at a young age, where he became a metalworker and union leader, later founding the Workers’ Party and building a storied political career.

A significant portion of the parade addressed the challenges Lula faced over the past decade, when he was convicted of taking part in a bribery scheme and imprisoned for 580 days.

That period coincided with the rise of the far right in Brazil, rallying around Jair Bolsonaro, who was elected president in 2018 while Lula was in prison. Lula was later cleared of all charges and elected again in 2022.

One section of the samba school portrayed the social groups that have largely opposed Lula and supported Bolsonaro. Participants wore costumes shaped like food cans featuring an image of a white heterosexual couple with two children. Beneath it appeared the phrase Família em Conserva (literally, “Family in Preserves” or “Canned Family”), a play on conservatism in Portuguese (preserved or canned food is called comida em conserva).

The name of the section was “Neoconservatives”. Above the participants’ heads were symbols representing social groups that have strongly backed Bolsonaro: agribusiness, the economic elite, the military, and Evangelical Christians.

Acadêmicos de Niterói enraged Lula’s opposition in Congress. Several parties and lawmakers alleged the parade amounted to early electoral campaigning, given that Lula is expected to seek re-election later this year. His adversaries also alleged that his administration had funded the samba school.

The “Neoconservatives” section also sparked outrage among many of Lula’s opponents. Evangelical leaders such as Senator Damares Alves described it as “an attack on Christian churches”. Many pastors reacted strongly to the satire of the “canned family”. Images of food cans featuring actual family photos labelled as conservative flooded social media.

Evangelicals were not the only group to criticise Acadêmicos de Niterói. Sr Kelly Patrícia, a founding member of the Hesed Institute and one of Brazil’s most prominent Catholic influencers, posted a video on social media a few days after the parade protesting the “Neoconservatives” section.

“A new attack on our families. On 15 February, during a samba school parade in Rio de Janeiro, your family was mocked,” she said.

The video received at least 340,000 likes on Instagram alone and was shared more than 90,000 times. Throughout the week, Catholics debated the issue on social media. Progressives argued that the samba school’s criticism targeted hypocrisy, not families.

Archbishop Zanoni Demettino Castro of Feira de Santana, in the state of Bahia, who heads the Afro-Brazilian Pastoral Commission of the Brazilian bishops’ conference, told The Tablet that he did not see any serious problem in Acadêmicos de Niterói’s presentation.

“In my opinion, the idea of the ‘canned families’ was to criticise the ‘canned ideas’ coming from abroad, especially from President Donald Trump’s United States. His conservative policies have a significant impact on Brazil,” he said.

Castro added that families in Brazil are far more threatened by hunger and lack of housing – in other words, “by policies that exclude the poor”.

“Living the Gospel means serving the most vulnerable. Those who were offended by that parade are concerned about minor issues, while we have real problems to solve in Brazil,” he said.

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